===============================================
InterText Vol. 8, No. 1 / January-February 1998 
===============================================

  Contents

    The Worse Part..................................Neal Gordon

    Ox-Plum Road....................................Hollis Drew

    How Joe Found a Living......................Adam Harrington

    The Year Before Sleep.......................Rupert Goodwins
    
....................................................................
    Editor                                     Assistant Editor
    Jason Snell                                    Geoff Duncan
    jsnell@intertext.com                    geoff@intertext.com
....................................................................
    Submissions Panelists:
    Bob Bush, Joe Dudley, Peter Jones, Morten Lauritsen, Rachel 
    Mathis, Jason Snell
....................................................................
    Send correspondence to editors@intertext.com or 
    intertext@intertext.com
....................................................................
  InterText Vol. 8, No. 1. InterText (ISSN 1071-7676) is published 
  electronically every two months. Reproduction of this magazine 
  is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold (either by 
  itself or as part of a collection) and the entire text of the 
  issue remains unchanged. Copyright 1998 Jason Snell. All stories 
  Copyright 1998 by their respective authors. For more information 
  about InterText, send a message to info@intertext.com. For 
  submission guidelines, send a message to guidelines@intertext.com.
....................................................................



  The Worse Part   by Neal Gordon
=================================
....................................................................
  When does a relationship cross the line from being in trouble to 
  being over?
....................................................................

  "I'm getting engaged, Rey," Liona says, squeezing lemon onto her 
  fried perch. She is a model, and her movements are fluid, 
  without cessation. The effect is that she always seems to be 
  moving. One movement becomes the next.

  "But I thought that -- " I start, but I can't think of what to 
  say. We are in the diner on Ninth, doing what we always do 
  afterward. Having lunch. What can I say?

  "That I'd wait for you?"

  "That you _were_ waiting for me," I say leaning forward and 
  trying to look at her. I have long since learned the 
  difficulties in dating a very beautiful woman. Looking her in 
  the eye is difficult at best.

  Liona takes a bite of her fish and says, "Rey, you're sweet, and 
  I'm glad you've finally made some decisions about Audra, but I'm 
  not going to be monogamous with you."

  I push the mashed potatoes around on my plate. The mashed 
  potatoes I can look at. Homemade with lumps. The brown gravy is 
  a mix, too silky not to be. "It doesn't sound like you have 
  been," I say.

  "No," she says and laughs, "but neither have you, if you think 
  about it. Regardless, I'm not going to marry you, so there's no 
  point in it." Then she adds, "This fish is delicious."

  "Why not? We're good together," I say and manage to take a good 
  look at her. Like always, I want to stare.

  "No, Rey, we're fun together."

  "Exactly," I say. She is wearing a baseball cap and T-shirt and 
  jeans. Her informal dress helps. When she is dressed, I mean 
  _really_ dressed, it's like standing next to a person in a 
  spotlight. Everyone sees you, but only as an afterthought.

  "No, those aren't the same thing," she says. "We wouldn't be 
  good together."

  "What's the difference?"

  "I enjoy you. You enjoy me, we have a fun time, but it's not 
  good."

  "That sounds hypocritical."

  "No, it's not. It's the truth. How could I ever trust you?"

  The waitress returns and fills our water glasses. She looks at 
  my untouched plate and says, "Foodzallright?"

  "Yes, fine," I say and stick a fork into the potatoes for her 
  approval. She smiles and walks away. Liona is eating her fish 
  and smiling at me. Everyone is smiling, dammit, and I am struck 
  dumb by my own unhappiness.

  Liona's teeth are as white as cow's milk, whiter than pearls. 
  But it is her lips that call attention to her face. They are 
  very thin and a color that I have never seen on another woman. 
  The color of a peach, pink-yellow. I cannot look at them closely 
  without feeling as I did when I first met her: that she is much 
  too attractive for the likes of me.

  "Have I ever lied to you?" I ask.

  "Not that I know."

  "Well, there you are."

  "But you've shown me repeatedly how subversive you are if need 
  be. We've been seeing each other for nearly two years." She 
  rolls her eyes. Yes, much too attractive.

  "You're saying that because I made a relationship with you while 
  I was married, you can't trust me when I'm not?"

  "Don't twist the words. Eat your food," she says, reaching over 
  with her fork for a piece of my meatloaf.

  I take a bite of the meatloaf. It is still very hot. Great 
  texture. "Tell me what I can do to fix this."

  "This isn't the kind of thing you fix, Rey. It's the kind of 
  thing you recognize."

  "But if there's a problem..."

  "There isn't a problem. You're a nice, sweet man, and I'm very 
  fond of you, but we can't be serious. Eat."

  I look down at my full plate. The meatloaf plate here is large 
  and I love it because I am usually hungry after Liona and I 
  spend the afternoon together. It's like the sex awakens all of 
  my other senses. It has always struck me funny that after sex 
  with her, I invariably find myself having sex with Audra. I 
  wonder what Audra would say if she knew that Liona was 
  responsible for her orgasms for the last two years. Best bet is 
  she wouldn't approve.

  I begin to eat my meatloaf, but my heart isn't in it and I 
  mostly stir things around to make it look like I'm eating, the 
  way I used to when mom made liver or goulash. I feel the dull 
  ache in my privates and I can't sit comfortably.

  "Sore?" she asks, with a smile.

  "Tired, I guess."

  "Good," she says and I expect something more but she doesn't say 
  anything and we eat in silence for a few minutes. I watch as 
  Liona delicately picks through the fish and then takes each 
  bite. With her tongue, she searches through the bite for bones, 
  then gently reaches up, takes them out and sets them down on the 
  plate.

  Finally the waitress comes back to our table and fills the water 
  glasses. "You no like the meatloaf?" she asks.

  "It's fine, I'm just not as hungry as I thought."

  "Itsa big meal. Want I should wrap it for later?" she says with 
  a stray finger. "Maybe you have a late snack?"

  "No, its fine, thank you."

  "But you hardly eat nothing."

  "It's fine, really."

  "Suit yourself," she says and shrugs. "You don't want pie then?"

  "No."

  "Do you have any chocolate?" Liona asks. I look at her plate of 
  fish bones. Sharp quills as white as her teeth that lie neatly 
  stacked to one side of the cottage cheese ball with half a 
  maraschino cherry on top.

  "No, but we got Boston Cream."

  "That would be great," Liona says and smiles and looks down.

  "Skinny thing like you eating Boston Cream." The woman laughs 
  and turns toward the kitchen.

  I know Liona is a little embarrassed because I used to watch her 
  put on her makeup when we first met. We had a ritual. I'd get 
  the room and she'd wait by the elevator. We'd ride up together 
  without looking at each other, then go to the room. We'd make 
  love and then get into the shower and talk and talk until I 
  could make love again. Then sex a second time, and another 
  shower. Then she'd sit on the vanity and fix her makeup and I'd 
  watch her. Married for seven years and I had no idea how a woman 
  put on her makeup. Powder and base and then color in her cheeks, 
  just a little. White shading stuff under her eyes and color over 
  and then a pencil and then lipstick. It takes about fifteen 
  minutes, all told.



  At first she used to blush because she had never had a man watch 
  her so closely and you could see the color underneath rise up 
  like now. The amazing thing is, she doesn't really look any 
  different after, she just looks more like her. Then we'd go out 
  and have a meal, just like today. We've eaten in most of the 
  little places in town a few times, I guess.

  When the waitress brings the pie and the check, I am at a loss 
  for words.

  "You aren't going to get all weird on me, are you?" Liona asks, 
  taking a bite of the pie.

  "Weird? No. I don't think so," I say leaning forward and taking 
  out my wallet.

  "Do you understand why I can't keep seeing you?"

  "Not at all." I start to count out the money for lunch.

  "Because I want to have a real relationship."

  I stop with the money and say, "I can have that," trying to look 
  right at her, but I can't hold it.

  "No. You and I couldn't ever be more than what we are now. 
  Lovers."

  "OK, I'll take it," I say, trying to make a joke.

  "Rey, try to be serious for one minute. I'm telling you that 
  this afternoon was the last time."

  "Why?"

  "Because I have never had to trust you to be faithful, and now 
  that I would have to trust you, I know I can't."

  "You mean that you can't be involved with me because we had an 
  affair."

  "Basically, yes."

  "Super. Just brilliant," I say. I am so pissed I can barely put 
  my wallet away, my hands are shaking so bad.

  "Are you going back to Audra?" she says, wiping her mouth with 
  the paper napkin from her lap. I watch as the last of her 
  lipstick smears onto the napkin.

  "I don't know," I say and she lifts her purse to her lap, opens 
  it and pulls out her lipstick.

  She starts to put it on and says, "I think it would do you good 
  to be alone awhile." She puts on a deep red that hides her 
  natural color.

  "Well, that I will be," I say.

  "Don't worry. I'll call you at the restaurant in a few days and 
  make sure you're OK," she says. "Give me a kiss, then." She 
  leans in, but turns her head when I go to kiss her, and so I 
  only give her a peck on the cheek.

  "Super," I say, leaning back in my chair.

  "Be nice, Rey. It's not the end of the world." She stands and 
  turns for the door.

  "No. Of course not." I say, closing my eyes and leaning my head 
  back, but the muscles in my neck stiffen like they are going to 
  cramp.



  Out on the street, I'm only about four blocks from my 
  restaurant. I should go back and finish the afternoon list, but 
  I can't do it. My car is there, though, and I know that if I go 
  get it, I'll end up working. A restaurant is a black hole for 
  time: you can never work too much. Always something to be done.

  It's a beautiful day: fall is here. I decide to hoof it home. I 
  can always get the car later, or have Carl drive it out to me. I 
  mean, just because my affair and my marriage are falling apart 
  doesn't mean that my restaurant is going anywhere, knock on 
  wood.

  I first met Liona two years ago. She walked into the restaurant 
  one day while Carl and I were finishing the lunch shift. We'd 
  sent the two line cooks home already and we were bullshitting 
  and doing the afternoon list and the place was about empty and 
  it was one of those hellish hot days that we get around here in 
  August. Absolutely criminal weather, what with the haze and the 
  bright sun making everything glare like hell.

  I was up front, and she walked through the door and the light 
  shone around her when the door was open. I can remember that 
  Carl and I both stopped still. Carl elbowed me, and I don't 
  know, I had had another fight with Audra or something, and the 
  business was going well and I felt cocky, and I knew that I 
  didn't have a chance in hell the moment the door closed and I 
  got a good look at her because she was so stunning. But I wiped 
  my hands on the white towel looped through my apron's tie-back, 
  and walked over to where she sat at the counter.

  I turned over her water glass and filled it from the pitcher 
  covered in condensation, and she picked up the glass and drained 
  the whole thing. "Before you even think about a menu, you need a 
  stick of gum," I said.

  She smiled, her white teeth shining beneath those even thin 
  lips. "I'm not much of a gum chewer," she said.

  "But this gum is guaranteed to transport you directly to 
  childhood," I said and reached into my pocket. I noticed that it 
  was easier to speak if I didn't look directly at her, so I 
  leaned forward onto the counter top with one elbow. "Fruitstripe 
  Gum." I said and held out the package to her. I looked up into 
  her blue eyes as she grinned and I had one of those moments. 
  Religious. Angelic. Something. Carl walked across the restaurant 
  toward the kitchen behind her, and I remember him waving his 
  arms in the air and making the football referee's gesture for 
  "injury on the field."

  I watched her hands as she unfolded the wrapper and put the 
  striped piece of gum in her mouth. "This gum is like fourth 
  grade," she said and laughed.

  "Told you."

  "Why are you carrying around Fruitstripe Gum?"

  "Too much free time," I said.

  "It's awfully sweet,"

  "The gum or..."

  "The gum," she said and laughed again.

  "Don't worry, the flavor only lasts about five minutes."

  "Probably just as well," she said. "I came in for lunch."

  "I think we can handle that," I said and nodded. The place was 
  nearly empty.

  "What do you recommend?'

  "Do you eat meat?"

  "It's awfully hot out," she said and looked past me to the 
  windows.

  "Something light?"

  "And cool."

  "Cold fried chicken and my own special potato salad," I said and 
  stood up straight.

  "Lemonade?"

  "Definitely. My name's Rey."

  "Sounds perfect, Rey."

  "Save room for dessert," I said, picking up a serving plate, and 
  walking back to the cooler door in the back of the dining room. 
  When I caught the handle of the cooler, it was cold. "Hey, if 
  you're hot, come back here for a second," I said.

  She looked at me for a moment, then got up and walked over. I 
  can remember thinking how beautiful she was, and noticing that I 
  was itching my wedding ring finger with my thumb. As if I was 
  turning it, but it wasn't there. I don't wear it to work because 
  it gets too hot over the stoves.

  "What is it?" she asked.

  "Coolest place around," I said and pulled open the heavy blue 
  door. On hot days, cool air rushes out of the walk-in cooler 
  like a cold wind. I flipped on the light, said, "C'mon, you're 
  letting the cold out," and went in. She followed and pulled the 
  door closed.

  "Heavenly," she said.

  It's actually about 40 degrees. "Feels great, doesn't it?"

  "Unbelievable."

  I reached into the rack and pulled out the long tray of fried 
  chicken I'd cooked off that morning. "I'm serving these tonight, 
  but I'll make an exception. Which one do you want?"

  She leaned past me, over the tray and pointed. "There," she 
  said. I could smell her hair she was so close. I could see the 
  goosebumps on her shoulders. I could see the fine freckles and 
  short peach fuzz on the back of her neck.

  I took the tongs from the side of the rack and put the piece on 
  the serving plate. "A fine choice. Potato salad's up front," I 
  said and slid the tray back into the rack.

  "My name's Liona," she said, stepping back and sticking out a 
  thin hand to me.

  "I was wondering how I was going to ask," I said, and shook her 
  hand. It was cold. Her hands are always ice cold.

  "I think I could just stand in here all day."

  "Not in that dress. You'd catch your death," I said and walked 
  out of the cooler.

  She ate daintily and we chatted all the way through her meal. I 
  gave her a piece of raspberry cheesecake I'd made the night 
  before and asked her to go to dinner with me.

  It was that easy.



  My house is a beautiful old victorian that Audra inherited. When 
  we got it, you couldn't see across the living room because the 
  ceiling sagged so badly. We've worked on it for almost our 
  entire nine years. It's been a long haul.

  I step up the stairs of the front porch and open the door. With 
  my hand still on the knob, I hear it. I stand stock still for a 
  moment, listening to Audra's groaning gradually building, and I 
  know from the tone that if I stand here for another five minutes 
  or so, I will probably hear her make that noise she makes when 
  she comes.

  I step back onto the porch and look up and down the street for 
  cars. About a block down is the Jensons' green Toyota. No one. I 
  step back into the house and slam the door hard enough to shake 
  the walls. The noise overhead stops. I hear moving feet. I drop 
  my keys on the hall table and walk into the living room. The air 
  conditioning comes on. The upstairs bathroom door closes.

  In a moment, "That you, Rey?" comes down the stairs. It's Carl's 
  voice.

  "Don't come down or I'll kick your fucking ass," I say without 
  raising my voice. I could use a drink, and walk over to the 
  liquor cabinet and get a bottle of Jack Daniels from the shelf. 
  I start to grab a glass and don't.

  "Can we talk about this?" comes the voice of my closest friend.

  "No. Crawl out the damn window and jump off the back porch. Jump 
  off the fucking moon," I say and open the bottle and take a deep 
  drink. My throat gags and I cough, but I take another.

  "I'm coming down," Carl says from the top of the stairs.

  "Then you'll be dead and I'll be in jail," I say, and I sit down 
  on the sofa. I take another swig, bite back the edge of the 
  whiskey, kick off my shoes and put my feet up on the coffee 
  table. I hear Carl walk back across the upstairs, into the den 
  and open a window. Then I hear him on the roof. It's about a 
  twenty-foot drop. He'll probably break a leg if he jumps. I 
  don't think he will; he's not the type. At some point, I will 
  have to let him back in the house.

  There is almost complete silence now, except for the sound of 
  Audra crying in the bathroom. This noise is replaced by the 
  sound of water running into the tub. I try to drink a few inches 
  of the whiskey, hoping to avoid the entire discussion that I 
  know will take place as soon as the water drains, but I can't.

  Instead, I set the bottle on the table top, reach into my back 
  pocket and pull out my wallet. I take out the thick wad of 
  credit cards, remove the rubber band from around them, and start 
  flipping them over, face down on the coffee table. I start at 
  the top of the first row, dialing the number on the back. 
  Mastercard. The water stops running into the bathtub.

  "Yes, I need to report my Mastercard is missing," I say to the 
  silky voiced young woman on the phone. "I seem to have lost my 
  wallet this morning and I need to have this account stopped 
  until I locate it," I take another drink, give the woman the 
  required number, say thank you, hang up and dial the number for 
  the Visa.

  American Express, Diner's, then Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Penney's 
  and the local store cards. I decide to keep the Sears card and 
  the gas card. As I finish, the bottle is about a quarter gone, 
  and I hear the water from the tub gurgling through the old 
  plumbing. I dial the phone number of the restaurant.

  "Mable's," comes the voice of the hostess.

  "It's Rey, patch me back to Steve in the kitchen." I hear the 
  bathroom door open above me.

  "Right away, Mr. Colvain." The line clicks. I hear Audra start 
  down the steps.

  "What can I do you for, Rey," comes Steve's voice, our sous 
  chef. I can hear the sound of the fan in the convection oven 
  kick on. Cheesecakes must be in.

  "I need you to finish the list, I'm not going to get back," I 
  say and I watch as her feet and then legs and then robe appear 
  through the railing banister.

  "What do you want to run for specials?"

  "I can't do this Steve, and I'm not going to be in tomorrow. 
  Probably won't see Carl either. Can you just cover till tomorrow 
  night?" Make no mistake, Audra is a beautiful woman in her own 
  right. Red hair bunched up on the back of her head. I raise a 
  hand for her to stop. She ignores me and walks into the kitchen.

  "You OK, boss?" Steve asks.

  "No, as a matter of fact, I'm fucking awful. I'll call tomorrow 
  sometime."

  "I'll cover it."

  "OK then," I say and hang up the phone.

  Audra walks back into the room with a large glass of Seven-Up. 
  Her white robe is draped closed around her and she opens the 
  liquor cabinet and fishes out a glass and a coaster. She sets 
  the coaster on the coffee table in front of me, puts the glass 
  on it, and sits down on the other sofa, pulling her feet up 
  under her, knees together. Just like her.

  "Are you planning to get a divorce, then?" I ask.

  "I hadn't really thought about it."

  "You should have."

  "I should have when you opened Mable's."

  "Don't make excuses," I say and tip an inch of whiskey into the 
  glass.

  "Pour some of that in here, will you?" she says and holds out 
  her glass. I fill the top inch. Audra inserts her finger and 
  half stirs it, then licks her finger clean.

  "Did it have to be Carl?" I ask.

  "It didn't have to be anyone. I'm sorry it was Carl."

  "Is he the only one?"

  "Yes."

  "Are you lying?"

  "No," she says, but I know her well enough that she could be if 
  she wanted to. Of course, so could I.

  I drink the whiskey without choking and set the glass down hard. 
  Then I repour two inches, and sip at it. "Can you tell me why?"

  "Not without making excuses."

  "What can you tell me?"

  "That I'm lonely."

  "So you fucked my best friend? Jesus," I say and lean back on 
  the couch. The couch is so deep that I am almost lying 
  horizontally and I rest the glass on my thigh.

  "No, I looked for someone who would pay me some mind."

  "Fucking is a strange way to make friends," I say to the 
  ceiling, letting my eyes close.

  "Are you mad because I slept with him?"

  "Didn't sound like sleeping," I snap, sitting up, and I can feel 
  the alcohol now, making my head spin. Making me angry.

  "Or are you mad because I slept with anyone?"

  "Both. But him I have to work with, dammit. I have to look at 
  him."

  "I'm sorry about that," she says, and takes a drink of her 
  drink.

  "Do you love him?" I ask.

  "No. No more than you do."

  "What does that mean?"

  "You spend more time with him than you do with me."

  "I run a restaurant with the guy."

  "And the restaurant gets all of your attention. Even now you 
  called it before we spoke."

  "Are you trying to blame this on the restaurant?"

  "No. This isn't the kind of thing you blame on something, Rey. 
  It's the kind of thing you recognize."

  "Yeah," I say, stunned. I drift, closing my eyes, back to Liona 
  and already her face is fading.

  There is a long silence. I nod.

  "I can't do this," Carl calls from upstairs. I spill my drink.

  "Shit," I say, standing up fast.

  Audra laughs.

  I have to piss. "Would you deal with him?" I ask and walk off to 
  the toilet.

  Pissing, I look at the calendar. Today is St. Michael's feast 
  day, September 30. My mom sent the calendar; I am long-since 
  lapsed. Audra and I were married Catholic. That was about the 
  last time I set foot in the church. I had enough from Catholic 
  school. I can hear Carl climbing back in the window.

  Saint Mike was the general in God's army of Angels, I remember 
  from catechism class. He was made of snow. I guess the intended 
  effect was that kids would think they were safe in snowstorms, 
  or something. Or that he was like a blizzard to his enemies, 
  everywhere at once. All it ever made me think about was how when 
  you made a snow-man, you made a thing, but when you made a 
  snow-angel, you made a space: a hole.

  I am pretty drunk and I wash my face in the sink, trying to 
  sober up a bit, but I can't get St. Mike out of my mind. Is what 
  Liona and I had a real thing or just a space between Audra and 
  me? I hear the front door close.

  When I am back out in the living room, Audra is seated again. 
  "Is he gone?" I ask.

  "Yes."

  "Am I supposed to go?" I ask. I start to pick up the credit 
  cards.

  "You don't have to," she says.

  I stop what I'm doing. "Do you want me to stay?"

  "If you want to stay married."

  "We're married," I say, but the words sound strange to me. It's 
  been a long time since I really thought about being married. All 
  I've thought about for a long time now is getting divorced. I 
  sit down next to her.

  "I don't want you to stay because you feel obligated," she says 
  and puts a hand on my knee. She has beautiful hands, I remember.

  "Marriage means being obligated," I say, but I can hear how 
  hollow those words sound.

  The house is dead quiet. In a whisper she says, "Then go."

  I have wanted her to say those words for almost a year now, to 
  let me off the hook easy. But when they come, I know that I 
  don't want them. "No, that's too easy," I say.

  "I don't want to fight," she says, pulling back from me.

  I push my feet into the cushions on the back of the couch. 
  "That's not the point. The whole point of marriage is that you 
  can't just leave," I say, hoping that by saying the words I will 
  believe them, make them real.

  "Yes you can, I'll give you a divorce, if that's what you want," 
  she says.

  "No, it doesn't matter what I want. That's not the point. 
  Sometimes being married is bad. But you don't just leave. That's 
  not being married."

  "You shouldn't stay if it's that bad. If you want to leave."

  "No, you still have to stay. Right now is the _worse_ part of 
  `for better or for worse.' This is just the worse part." I say, 
  trying to convince myself.

  "Will there be a better part again?" she says.

  "I don't know. I can't say," I answer and just look at her. We 
  sit a long time in silence. I try to remember the things that 
  made us get married. If I can only think of them, then maybe we 
  can have a better part again.



  Neal Gordon <nbgordon@i-2000.com>
-----------------------------------
  Neal Gordon teaches at the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia and 
  works with the Working Writer's Group, a long-running critical 
  group in the Philadelphia area.



  Ox-Plum Road   by Hollis Drew
===============================
....................................................................
  We search for meaning in lifeÕs events; sometimes that search is 
  fruitless.
....................................................................

  One thousand years ago, a holy man traveling to Hangzhou in east 
  central China surprised his rustic audience with the news that 
  their local mountain had once stood near his village back in 
  India. His followers quickly renamed their mountain "The 
  Mountain That Flew Here." Today vacationing honeymooners visit 
  this magical mountain to pray for prosperity and the happy 
  arrival of sons.



  My father, Guy Woodleaf, was twelve when he chopped off his twin 
  brother's finger with an ax. The year was 1930. Guilt, 
  indignities, betrayal, and brutish circumstances were 
  commonplace that year. Mrs. Woodleaf sent her twins into the 
  henhouse early one Sunday morning to kill two chickens for 
  lunch. Aunt Violet has always believed Shawn only intended it as 
  a joke: He laid his pinkie upon the bloody chopping block while 
  two headless chickens flopped around in the yard.

  "I dare you!" Shawn said, sneering at Guy.

  "I'll do it!" Guy said, then cocked the ax above his head.

  A chicken rose and staggered blindly toward the twins. Guy 
  jumped out of its path while Shawn hooted his youthful contempt. 
  The chicken wobbled off in a drunken barnyard do-si-do before it 
  kicked onto its side.

  "Chicken!" Shawn chortled. He spit through his teeth like a 
  boxer.

  Guy raised the ax into the air and hesitated.

  Shawn shouted, "Double-dog dare!"

  _Whack!_

  Shawn yelped sharply, grabbed his gushing hand, and dashed 
  across the porch and inside the house with a torn expression of 
  alarm and gutsy admiration for his brother's nerve etched across 
  his face. It was one of the rare moments when anyone would see 
  Shawn cry.

  Guy had been born first. He had emerged thin and unhappy and 
  vaguely introspective and, just like a dog or bear, rarely 
  stopped to consider the universe outside the bankrupt impulses 
  which would one day destroy him. The midwife was busy cleaning 
  up when Grandmother launched Shawn into the womb of time like a 
  slick melon seed flicked between her forefinger and thumb. The 
  family claims he entered the world laughing. Shawn would become 
  the wild child and, truth be told, his parents' favorite son. In 
  time, because of his toughness, he loomed as big as the 
  flesh-eating Minotaur. Their older sisters immediately adored 
  the new twins and squabbled over who would bathe them and powder 
  their bottoms and smear Vaseline upon their quaint nubbins.

  The twins left school after finishing the eighth grade to farm 
  with their father in the Mississippi River bottoms. Guy said he 
  had enjoyed school some while it had lasted. Shawn didn't seem 
  to really give a damn.

  Most of the other young men from the bottoms left school with 
  them: By then they could read and write, multiply and divide, 
  and knew enough history to participate in a rural democracy. 
  They quickly developed a respect for the lush geography that 
  shaped them, and understood its selectivity much better than 
  many who finished high school. While marginal crops and 
  difficult field hands often left them exhausted, the yearning 
  leg-clench of their women left them feverish and reverential. 
  They believed in determination and sacrifice, God and family and 
  country, and that playing by the rules really mattered. Too 
  emotionally distant to articulate well such deeply rooted 
  passions, many of those tough plowboys could kill. They would 
  soon make some damned good soldiers, those big glorious men.

  Shawn was the first to tire of farming and joined the Merchant 
  Marines shortly before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Each 
  year at Christmas, Aunt Violet corners me between the chocolate 
  pie and the banana nut fruitcake to whisper a solemn foreboding, 
  since most Woodleaf men die so violently in their prime. (I 
  admit to having wondered if my father felt a nasty twitch of 
  what lay in store for him when the telegram announced Shawn was 
  lost at sea.)

  Then she closes her large doleful eyes, clutches her chest as if 
  wringing aching hunger from tragic old memories, and repeats our 
  family's long bloated epiphany:

  Shawn died shortly after midnight below decks in an oil tanker 
  torpedoed five miles off the coast of Texas in March of 1942. 
  The family had desperately prayed that Shawn had managed to 
  survive, and several brave plots were invented: Shawn had been a 
  gifted Sunday-afternoon athlete who loved competition and 
  bruises and glory; surely such a young bull could easily swim 
  five miles in a calm sea.

  But the War Department had sent the tanker's lone survivor, a 
  badly scarred young sailor who had stood watch on the bow that 
  fateful night, to assure the family that Shawn had died quickly 
  in his sleep. The young seaman had stuttered; and he had spoken 
  sadly, and with great guilt, about his brave comrades who had 
  died in their sleep, while he had been blown clear of most of 
  the sizzling oil. Aunt Violet says she knew from the look in his 
  one good eye, he wished he had perished with Shawn.

  The ship went down quickly. "N-n-no, there w-w-were no 
  s-s-screams; j-j-j-just the hissing of the s-s-ship as it 
  s-s-sank b-b-beneath the wa-wa-water."

  There was no more doubt about it: Shawn was gone.

  Guy, married by then, had not waited on the draft, but had 
  enlisted only a few days after Pearl Harbor. It was the right 
  thing to do, just as it was the right time to be magnanimous, 
  and he had felt only temporary disgust for the giddy town boys 
  with the bright, coddled looks and smell of a vacation who had 
  applied for military deferments as gentlemen farmers. After 
  Pearl Harbor, I imagine he felt the same remote hunger he must 
  have felt after quitting school; he listened patiently to the 
  moral outrage of his crippled President, but also clearly 
  understood with the rapid pulse of a hunter the gut-ripping 
  realities of war. When the Army trained him as a medic, it was 
  OK with him; he had often doctored the deep wounds of stubborn 
  mules and careless black men. Then for several tedious months he 
  had escorted shell-shocked soldiers to makeshift asylums 
  throughout the South before he finally received word that he was 
  headed overseas. That night he called for his young bride, Diane 
  Rose.

  Mother rode in an overcrowded train for eighteen hours to say 
  goodbye to a husband she barely knew in an obscure hotel room 
  somewhere in Kansas City. Her world had grown acute since Pearl 
  Harbor. And, although she had been physically exhausted by her 
  trip, she had fought back her tears to make their last night 
  together special, just in case something unthinkable happened to 
  Guy as it had to Shawn.

  Guy had a secret plan. Since the last thing Diane Rose wanted 
  was a child to raise alone, Guy had secretly snipped off the tip 
  of his condom. Getting the beautiful Diane Rose pregnant made 
  urgent sense to this laconic man more accustomed to the swoosh 
  of a plow than the deep drumbeat of war.

  Afterwards, she was outraged to discover Guy's cheap deception 
  and thrummed her indignation to everyone in the family who would 
  listen. But on that night my father wasn't moved by her anger 
  and righteous tears; if a man was about to die in his prime, his 
  wife should at least have a baby. So, like millions of other 
  wartime brides, my mother discovered her husband was as capable 
  of dishonesty as the next horny man.

  "If it's a boy, name him Aaron!" he shouted to Diane Rose as his 
  troop train pulled away from the loading platform early the next 
  morning, leaving her shivering and anxious and alone in the 
  bitter teeth of a February snowstorm.

  It was almost three years before Guy returned home, exhausted by 
  terrible visions on Guadalcanal and changed forever by the awful 
  momentum of those years. While he served overseas, Grandfather 
  had died from cirrhosis of the liver brought on by a bout with 
  hepatitis, and Grandmother had moved off the farm and in with 
  his sister in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

  Wartime photographs of my father dressed in his sleek, green 
  Army uniform show a serious young man with dark eyes and heavy 
  eyebrows. His military hat is cocked back upon the top of his 
  head. In those old photographs, which I love, he glows virtuous 
  and ripping and timeless.

  He soon found work as an automobile mechanic at the Ford 
  dealership in Lazich and convinced Diane Rose they needed 
  another child, my sister, Hanna. We rode with him when he died 
  violently on a cold Sunday afternoon.



  January that year had opened with several warm, vagrant days 
  that promised much more than the month could deliver, then 
  turned raw as an ice storm knocked out the electrical power for 
  three bitter days. Many in bundled Lazich staggered before a 
  surgical wind that cracked open their tired old bones. My father 
  had just reluctantly agreed to serve as a pallbearer for a 
  distant cousin whom he had not seen in years. Since it also 
  meant hauling all of us over one hundred miles into Mississippi 
  to sleep in a strange, lumpy bed, he saw little reason to feel 
  honored. But, still, Minnie was family.

  Hanna and I had raged like heathens at the cemetery that 
  afternoon, and Hanna had almost pitched headlong into Cousin 
  Minnie's open grave during a game of tag with our young 
  Mississippi cousins. Our father snapped his fingers at our 
  mother and pointed us toward our car, but Mother was too busy 
  snuffing out her grief with a frilly handkerchief to notice. So, 
  he marched us out behind a cedar tree and thrashed us with his 
  belt.

  When we returned, Cousin Minnie's casket had been lowered into 
  her grave, and the funeral party was breaking up before the 
  biting wind. My father tossed a handful of dirt onto the coffin 
  as an earnest though feeble salute, but the coffin lid drummed 
  back unkindly. Sullen gravediggers in heavy gray overalls and 
  gray cowhide gloves tweaked their shovels impatiently in a mound 
  of waiting dirt. It quickly became obvious he was just in the 
  way.

  As we meekly climbed into the backseat of our car, he mumbled to 
  our mother, "The only reason God gives us kids is to humble us!"

  He rushed us through Memphis and across the turbid Mississippi 
  River. Shafts of filtered sunlight pierced the afternoon's eerie 
  grayish-green cast. When we turned onto a familiar narrow county 
  road that lead toward our home in Lazich, I had regained enough 
  courage to ask, "Momma, tell me again why it's called Ox-Plum 
  Road."

  Mother smiled. She had been blessed with charm and the gift of 
  words. And even if she had granted my frequent requests and 
  retold a story a thousand times, I always wanted to hear it 
  again:

  "Back toward that line of trees over there," she said, sweeping 
  her hand to the open fields outside the car in a gesture so 
  subtly defined each of us, even my father, turned our gaze to 
  the distant line of leafless trees, "Two brothers once farmed 
  several acres of land, land that had once belonged to their 
  father, and before that to their father's father, and even his 
  father before him." She paused to allow the sweep of such 
  history to etch our souls.

  "Being brothers, and naturally competitive, each brother wanted 
  to make a flamboyant mark to win the hand of a young widow both 
  brothers loved. The older brother had planted a prized plum 
  orchard that almost everyone agreed made the best plum jelly in 
  the county. Like a cider famous for its sweetness, the juice 
  from these plums was unlike all others. Its crystal amber was 
  described as something fit for the table of the gods.

  "Well, the younger brother couldn't be outdone, and he cherished 
  a stout ox, which he had lovingly raised from soon after its 
  birth. Some said he loved this ox almost as much as he loved the 
  pretty widow -- and maybe even more than his brother loved his 
  wild plums, if that was possible.

  "Each fall, when he showed the ox at the fair, he always brought 
  home a blue ribbon. Just as his older brother brought home blue 
  ribbons for his plum jelly.

  "Then one day something happened to the ox. Everyone had a 
  theory. Some said maybe a swarm of bees stung it. Others said it 
  drank poisoned water. Nobody really knew. But something happened 
  to the ox, and it broke through a fence and raged throughout the 
  plum orchard, where it destroyed all of the prized plum trees. 
  The angry farmer, in a wild rage, then killed his brother's ox 
  with an ax.

  "When confronted by his young brother, the farmer, still reeling 
  from anger at his losses, boasted of his deed. The two brothers 
  then cursed the day the other had been born. The younger brother 
  stormed off after swearing he would soon get revenge.

  Late that night the ox's owner slipped through a window in his 
  brother's cabin and killed his brother in his sleep. Some said 
  he used the ax that killed his ox. Others said, instead, he 
  strangled his brother with a strand of rusty wire.

  "A mob of angry neighbors didn't wait for a trial, but hanged 
  the younger brother from a large cottonwood tree that grew along 
  this road. Then they burned his body and left him hanging for 
  days as an example to others of how unchecked greed will spoil 
  their hearts. And that's how this road got its name."

  I fell back against the seat and thought about the sweet taste 
  of wild plum jelly and how awful it would feel to be strangled 
  with rusty barbed wire.

  We were almost home when a large black car blocked our passage. 
  I watched the other car hog the road. Strong gusts of wind 
  buffeted it across the center line, then back against the hard 
  gravel shoulder making it impossible for us to safely pass. 
  Ox-Plum Road had been built many decades earlier down the 
  turn-rows at the ends of long cotton fields; it was a dangerous 
  road, which twisted and galvanized itself into a treacherous 
  tangle.

  My mother gripped the dashboard with her long, red fingernails, 
  meant to mimic the long, sensuous nails of her idol, Bette 
  Davis. "He's drunk, Guy!" Mother said, biting her bottom lip in 
  annoyance while thrusting out her chin.

  "Nigger!" my father growled. He jerked impatiently at the knot 
  on the wide tie I had chosen for him at Christmas.

  I cowered against the backseat. Mother had once warned me to 
  never use the word "nigger" around the "coloreds" because they 
  could retaliate by calling me a "bastard." (Bastard? -- 
  something, no doubt, ugly, dark, and sticky as a goat turd; she 
  had secretly whispered the word bastard with her lips pressed 
  tightly against my ear.)

  I kneaded the clay-colored corduroy upholstery of our car with 
  my fingers and thumb and sniffed cautiously at the odor of my 
  fear -- a fruitlike dankness akin to that of the sallow dirt 
  scoured from the depths of Cousin Minnie's grave; I glanced 
  cautiously at my father's eyes reflected in the rear-view 
  mirror. His coal black eyes snapped open, then blinked softly 
  shut, just like a turtle's lazy crescent eyes do as it crunches 
  the head off a water moccasin.

  The absolute tone in his voice was the same one he had used 
  earlier that morning when he had caught me looking up Aunt 
  Sarah's dress from my hiding place under the breakfast table. 
  (The day before I had overheard my father tell some men at the 
  funeral home that it was a pity that Sarah had never remarried; 
  she might be his sister-in-law, but he wasn't blind. The woman 
  had some fine, long legs.) Kapop! Kapop! Kapop! The belt had 
  slashed with quirky authority across my butt. Don't cry! Don't 
  cry! my father had warned.

  I listened closely to the coupling of the accelerator, gear, and 
  clutch -- an ingenious mastery of an unforgiving machine. Mother 
  gripped the strap on the passenger door. Her pinched expression 
  showed the grim complicity of the rattled. Hanna played with the 
  wide-eyed doll she had received for Christmas. An annoying bug 
  when at her best, Hanna was too young to really matter.

  My father retreated twenty yards. His jaw had stiffened into a 
  scowling determination. His red-scrubbed mechanic hands gripped 
  the steering wheel. Grease in the lines of his knuckles had been 
  cast into braids of gray lace. His wonderful magic made the 
  engine roar. Then he smiled at me in the rear-view mirror, a 
  brief smile full of child-like conspiracy: Watch this one, 
  Spooner! (Spooner was his pet name for a child who shoveled in 
  his oatmeal at breakfast.)

  The black car up ahead swerved slowly to the right. Father saw 
  his chance and slammed the gas pedal against the floor. Our old 
  Ford responded with such a splendid leap my father grunted 
  eagerly. Then the other car danced back across the center line 
  just as my father dug a hard left to pass.

  Our cars brushed in a soft, clumsy kiss. Time crawled up in one 
  long, insidious jiggle until I was thrown free. Our car sent up 
  a great ball of white dust and gravel as it rolled beneath me. I 
  could have easily reached out and touched the power lines 
  nearby, but I remembered mother's warning that electricity could 
  kill me. Then my face plowed into the hard gravel on the 
  shoulder of the road.

  The other driver backed his car to a stop beside me. A tall 
  woman opened the passenger door and stepped out to tower above 
  me. She was young, maybe seventeen or eighteen, and she wore a 
  white letter sweater over a white blouse and black skirt. A gold 
  letter D was sewn onto her sweater and three gold chevrons 
  adorned one sleeve. Her long brown legs ended in a pair of 
  tattered shoes. She wore no socks over her sharp ankles. She 
  stepped cautiously toward me like a lanky, guarded bird.

  I sat up with great effort. Needles of pain stabbed my face. I 
  tried to stand, but my foot was twisted at a crazy angle and 
  couldn't bear my weight. The abstracted face of the young woman 
  stiffened, as if she was studying something quizzical or 
  something unreal or something mighty troubling. She slapped 
  herself sharply with both arms and rocked from her waist. She 
  opened her lips to emit a low, painful moan. Then she pinned her 
  bottom lip beneath her upper teeth as she moaned. She nodded 
  slowly and rocked deeply -- like old women in a trance sometimes 
  do in a fundamentalist church service.

  I reached up for her hand. "Help me," I asked. She quit rocking 
  to pull me to my feet. I stood for a shaky moment, but fell back 
  into the hard, loose gravel. She then walked toward the hunkered 
  wreckage of our car. The battered hood dangled from the front of 
  the car like an exhausted tongue. The front passenger door was 
  ripped away. Dirt and gravel and strips of metal were pelted up 
  and down the highway like silver jacks. Steam hassled up from 
  the wounded radiator in marvelous frosty plumes. The rancid 
  stench of gasoline hung low in the air. My father's right leg 
  was pinned under the wreck.

  Mother straddled my father's chest, and she reminded me of a 
  mechanical bird in a carnival booth dipping for a shallow drink 
  from the rim of a water glass. They seemed caught up in a game 
  of roughhouse we sometimes played on the living room rug. She 
  clutched his shirt below the collar. My proud Christmas tie was 
  twisted behind his neck. "Wake up, Guy!" she shouted. "You've 
  gotta wake up now."

  The young woman who stood above them nudged my father with her 
  shoe, but, like a cold viper, he didn't move. I glanced through 
  the open door at the man in the front seat of the big black car. 
  A faded cotton quilt had slid onto the floor of the car in a 
  soiled heap. An old guitar was propped up against the front 
  seat. Its long neck poked into the air, and the driver whumped 
  it sideways with his arm as he leaned in my direction. "Come 
  on!" he shouted through her open door. I flinched and glanced 
  quickly away before he noticed me.

  Then the man clumsily shoved open his door and stood with his 
  elbow wedged against his car. "Come on! Quick!" It was the young 
  woman and not me he wanted.

  "They need help," the woman called. She pronounced it _hep._

  "Git yore black ass back in this goddamned car!" he shouted. He 
  jerked his cupped hand across his chest.

  The woman turned away. Her long brown hand floated down to 
  gently touch Mother's shoulder. Mother looked quizzically up 
  into the young woman's face. "He won't wake up," Mother said. 
  She shook Father's shoulders again. "You've gotta wake up, Guy! 
  You quit teasin' me and wake up!"

  The driver lurched toward the young woman. She jerked backward 
  when he grabbed her sweater and yanked her away from the wreck. 
  He waved his big brown hand again in the direction of his car. 
  "Hurry!" But he didn't sound as angry as before.

  "Why?" the young woman persisted. She seemed drowsy, half-awake.

  He snapped the heel of his fist against her shoulder and spun 
  her around. "Do it now! Before somebody comes!" But the woman 
  wouldn't leave.

  The man stared past her for a moment deciding. He squatted 
  beside my father and studied my father's face. My mother looked 
  at the man but did not speak. The cold wind whipped the man's 
  dark flannel trousers around his legs. He breathed heavily 
  through his nostrils, like something cornered after a long chase 
  over high ground. He looked across his shoulder along Ox-Plum 
  Road which stretched out toward Lazich. He rubbed his fingers 
  anxiously across his lips. He stood quickly. I heard his knees 
  pop. Then he walked past the wreckage of our car and stooped to 
  lift something that shimmered brightly in the road. Then I saw 
  it, too. It was the silver-plated pistol my father always 
  carried in the car when we traveled.

  The young woman stared at the pistol in the man's hand. "Whacha 
  gone do?" the woman asked.

  "Move!" he shouted at the woman. I crabbed backward from the 
  edge of the road; I was really afraid of him then.

  He stood for a long moment deciding. He glanced both ways down 
  the long empty road. The young woman squealed and turned to run 
  back toward his big black car. She turned and stood beside the 
  open door with her hand pressed across her mouth. The man cocked 
  the hammer on the pistol.

  I heard it click -- as solid as a lock snapping shut. My heart 
  froze in my throat. I was young but I knew what my father's 
  pistol could do: I had watched it shatter glass jugs from my 
  father's well-placed shots, and, on a crisp autumn morning, drop 
  a two hundred pound hog to its knees before a steaming washpot.

  "Don't!" I shouted at the man.

  The man jumped. Maybe he was scared, too. He looked at me. 
  "Don't, mister," I said. "Don't hurt my momma." I rolled up onto 
  my hands and knees. The hard gravel on the shoulder of the road 
  dimpled my palms. He studied me carefully, then looked down at 
  Mother. I thought he spent a long time thinking about what he 
  must do. Mother hummed a tune that had been playing all week on 
  the radio in our living room. The man uncocked the pistol before 
  he dropped it into his coat pocket.

  The man crossed the road in front of me and glanced down at me 
  as he passed. The gravel crunched under the soles of his 
  brown-and-white oxford shoes. I looked quickly away and pushed 
  myself further from his car. When he reached the driver's door, 
  he slid inside. "Hurry!" he said again to the young woman.

  She shoved the guitar back upright and scrambled inside. The 
  soiled quilt bunched up under her feet. The man slammed his door 
  shut and hit the starter button roughly with his thumb. The 
  engine groaned, then fired. The young woman looked over at me 
  for the last time as the driver shifted into first gear. Then 
  she closed the door as they sped away.

  I cautiously pulled myself through the gravel until I reached 
  Mother. She still rocked back and forth upon my father's chest, 
  but with deeper, more agitated movements than she had earlier. 
  My father's head rolled in my direction. I touched his huge, red 
  hand. It felt like the chilled rubbery cap of a mushroom. His 
  eyes were open, but had puddled into cold, black pools.

  I heard a soft, thumping noise and turned to watch Hanna crawl 
  though a crack under the front seat, which had been torn loose 
  from its tracks. She pulled her Christmas doll behind her. She 
  waddled over and sat beside me. Her gray bonnet had been twisted 
  on her head. When I reached to straighten it, she slapped at my 
  hand.

  Hanna and I waited patiently beside our father, while the 
  shrill, plaintive cries of a killdeer in a nearby field of 
  cotton stubble arched neatly through the cold, green air. The 
  bird screeched at us, as if through force it could finally be 
  heard, then urgently raced away on some new mission.

  It seemed as if we waited forever before help came. Then cars 
  suddenly appeared on both sides of the road. People jabbered and 
  tripped over themselves to glimpse or poke or caress. Someone in 
  the crowd announced proudly that he had called the Law. 
  Strangers stuck their bright red faces before mine and ordered 
  me not to move with thick husky voices, like they were choking 
  on milk, while others kept a safe, gawking distance between 
  themselves and the wreck. Maybe they thought we were contagious, 
  because they pressed their young children so tightly against 
  their legs. "It happens just like that!" some old beetle-faced 
  philosopher barked, loudly snapping her fingers to clarify the 
  sweet brevity of life. I felt strangely excited and proud, like 
  our family had done something clever enough to win respect from 
  these strangers.

  A young schoolteacher from Lazich brought Hanna and me from the 
  cold into the backseat of her car. She couldn't touch us enough 
  with her tender fingers. Her husband revved his car engine, and 
  the warm air from the car heater caused my nose to run. The 
  teacher reached over the front seat and touched my face with a 
  soft, silk handkerchief. She grimaced when she lifted it away. 
  "Jesus! Sweet Jesus!" she whispered. The handkerchief was 
  stained with blood.

  "Ouch!"

  "Sorry!" she said. "Do you remember me, Aaron? I am Mrs. 
  Forshey, from school..." She smiled.

  I remembered. She taught the older children in fifth grade. 
  "What's wrong with my daddy?" I asked.

  Mrs. Forshey glanced outside the car window toward the wreck. 
  Then she glanced at her husband. "It'll be OK," she said gently 
  while patting my hand.

  I heard a thin wail skip across the fields like a flat stone 
  across water, then grow with startling intensity as an ambulance 
  pulled up beside the wreck. The crowd had reluctantly parted to 
  let the ambulance through, then tightly pulled back in upon 
  itself in order to see.

  I searched anxiously through the weaving legs of the crowd until 
  I saw my mother crumpled in the gravel at the edge of the road. 
  She didn't look real but more like something hastily daubed onto 
  canvas. Someone had tucked his suit coat around her shoulders to 
  keep her warm. Several men were working to free my father's 
  pinned leg, while a fat man in dirty overalls struggled to lift 
  the car with a crippled jack that slipped down one notch for 
  every two it gained. He finally motioned for the pressing crowd 
  to move back.

  "I want out," I said to Mrs. Forshey.

  "Me, too!" Hanna piped up in sweet, hot mimicry.

  Mrs. Forshey shook her head. "We must get you to a doctor, 
  Aaron," she said. Her admonishment would have worked on the 
  schoolyard, but not today. I grabbed for the door handle, but 
  Mrs. Forshey gently held my shoulder. "You can't walk," she 
  said. I struggled to break free. Hanna burst into tears.

  "I'll carry him back," Mr. Forshey said.

  "No, let me."

  Mrs. Forshey reluctantly placed me at Mother's side. I reached 
  out and touched her elbow. "Momma?" I asked. She slowly turned 
  her face in my direction, then back at the men struggling with 
  the car jack. Unable to resuscitate the old realities and unable 
  to break herself free, she hummed softly, something playful and 
  dreamy, but to herself, while the cold evening breeze whistled 
  musically across the broken shards of our car's windshield with 
  a faint, mocking lamentation -- like the uncertain resonance of 
  an aeolian harp.

  Mrs. Forshey knelt beside her in the gravel. "Your children are 
  with us," she said, pointing back over her shoulder to her car. 
  "We'll take care of them for you, Mrs. Woodleaf." She reached 
  out to touch one of Mother's hands.

  "I don't have children," Mother said with an odd shake of her 
  head. The words rose from the roots of her throat and 
  crystallized into feathery white blossoms as they spilled into 
  the air.

  Mrs. Forshey lifted me back up into her arms. I struggled again 
  but more weakly than before. This time she pulled me close to 
  her chest. "We're going now," she said firmly. Mother looked 
  away.

  When we reached the car, Mrs. Forshey eased me into the back 
  seat with Hanna. Hanna pointed a tiny finger at my face.

  "Don't!" I said. I touched the torn flesh along my cheek, but 
  quickly jerked my fingers from the gritty, zippered skin.

  The late winter light had seeped deep melon hues across the 
  evening sky. Although kind adults protected me, I knew my father 
  was dead. But I was only seven. I was too young to comprehend 
  how his death, like Shawn's, would soon become another gooey, 
  wormy marker among the eternal mysteries of the universe.



  Hollis Drew <jamesrcox@aol.com> 
---------------------------------
  Hollis Drew lives in Jackson, Mississippi, where he is gainfully 
  unemployed. This story is based on the actual events of his 
  life.



  How Joe Found a Living    by Adam Harrington
==============================================
....................................................................
  Who says they don't tell fairy tales any more? The characters 
  have just changed, that's all.
....................................................................
 
  1. In which Joe leaves home to find his fortune.
--------------------------------------------------

  One light and bright day as excited spring breezes danced around 
  the new green shoots in the meadow, Joe's mother hooshed Joe out 
  of the house with the end of her broom.

  "You're old enough to find a living now," she said. "Go to the 
  town and get one."

  Joe pulled on his boots and wrapped some bread, some apples and 
  the money his mother gave him to carry through a rainy day in a 
  red-striped handkerchief and tied it to the end of a stick. He 
  slung it over his shoulder and set off for the town.

  At the first house near the town he politely knocked on the door 
  and stepped back with his hands behind him.

  "Hello," said the fat man who opened the door. "What can I do 
  for you?"

  "I'm looking for a living, sir," said Joe. "Do you know where I 
  can find one?"

  "Not here, son, at any rate. Good day." He shut the door none 
  too gently.

  Joe picked up his stick and walked to the next house.

  "Good morning sir," he called up to a thatcher patting down the 
  cut straw on a barn roof. "Do you need any help? I'm looking for 
  a living."

  "Good morning to you, my boy. Have you any experience in 
  thatching?"

  "No, but I'm quick to learn."

  "So are hundreds of others. I need an experienced thatcher -- 
  I'm competing against all the other thatchers in the area for 
  speed, quality and price. I can't afford to teach anyone."

  "Surely if no one is teaching thatching, when you retire there 
  will be no more thatchers."

  The thatcher shrugged. "That won't be my problem, son. Good luck 
  finding a living."

  Joe walked on to the next house, chewing a sweet grass stem and 
  whistling.

  "Good morning madam," he called over the garden fence to the 
  woman tending her flower beds.

  "Good morning young man," said the woman. "What can I do for 
  you?"

  "Please madam, could you tell me wherever and ever I can find a 
  living?"

  "Ooh, now you're asking," she said. "There's not been any of 
  those in these parts for years. Why don't you try the center of 
  town?" So Joe thanked the woman and walked to the center of 
  town.

  He came on a house with a few broken windows and in desperate 
  need of paint.

  "Good afternoon, sir," Joe said as the owner-occupier slowly 
  opened the door. "I see that your house needs some renovation -- 
  would you be willing to hire me?"

  "Only if it costs nothing," said the man, who was wearing a 
  dirty vest. "This isn't the only house in town that's about to 
  disintegrate. Nobody has any money to fix such things because 
  very few of us have jobs. All the family's money is going on the 
  mortgage. I'm sorry, but we can't afford you."

  Joe then went to the town hall and found the director of public 
  works.

  "Good afternoon, sir," said Joe. "Your marketplace is awfully 
  dirty -- I can clean it for you if you like."

  "That's very good of you, young man. Very public-spirited. 
  There's a mop in that cupboard there."

  "How much would you be willing to pay?" said Joe, who wasn't 
  stupid, even though he wasn't from the ABC1 social group.

  "Oh no, we can't pay. We don't get enough taxes anymore because 
  nobody is buying or selling anything and nobody has a job. You 
  can use the mop for free, if you want."

  "That's not quite the point," said Joe.

  "Oh well. The market will have to stay dirty, then."

  Joe found a queue leading up to a grand old house near the 
  market square.

  "What's the queue for?" Joe asked a man at the back of the 
  queue.

  "The Duchess lives here -- she's the only one with any money in 
  these parts and she hires people to do things for her. She takes 
  in ten people at a time and finds out who of them will do her 
  work the cheapest. Sometimes she only has to pay a few pennies 
  for a whole week's work."

  "That's silly," said Joe.

  "That's life," said the man, looking dejected.

  "I'm going to find out why this has happened."

  "Well," chorused the queue, "when you find out, come back and 
  tell us please, 'cause we're in as mighty a high dudgeon about 
  it as you are."

  Joe sat on the steps of the market cross as the moon rose and 
  wondered where to start. 'The King is bound to know,' thought 
  Joe. 'He has more advisors than you could shake a stick at.' He 
  curled up in the doorway to a house and fell asleep.


  2. In which Joe meets Blackberry the Squirrel.
------------------------------------------------

  In the early morning he set off down the road to the big city. 
  He had to walk through the Dark Forest, which was so big that he 
  had to stop in the middle to rest on a tree stump.

  From within the tree stump came muffled protests. A squirrel 
  popped through a door and squeaked up at Joe, "Get off my roof! 
  Get _off_ my roof! You're cracking the ceiling, you great oaf! I 
  don't go 'round cracking your ceilings! Oh, look what you've 
  done! Look _what_ you've done! Deary me, deary _deary_ me."

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Squirrel," said Joe, hastily getting off the 
  tree stump. "I didn't know squirrels lived in tree stumps."

  "They don't usually, and the name's not Mr. Squirrel. It's 
  Blackberry, and I'm a Mrs."

  "Oh, I am sorry."

  "Never mind. If you go and get some sticks about _this_ long," 
  and Blackberry gestured with her two front paws, "I'll shore up 
  the ceiling. Bring some white mud from the creek and some grass 
  too. Hurry _hurry!_"

  Joe dashed into the woods to get the sticks, mud and grass for 
  Blackberry. When he returned, she asked him to place the sticks 
  inside the stump by shoving his hand through the front door 
  under her directions of "Left a bit, a bit more, stop, right a 
  bit, in a bit... that's it!"

  "Why on earth do you live in a tree stump?" asked Joe.

  "Some gray squirrels moved into my old neighborhood. Brought the 
  tone of the entire tree down -- they're not really the Oak type, 
  you know. Don't get me wrong, some of my best friends are grays, 
  but honestly, they are lazy, smelly thieves who have no sense of 
  decency. They should go back where they came from, in my view."

  "Where do they come from?"

  Blackberry made a _brrrrr_ noise as she thought.

  "Not sure exactly. Somewhere down south, I think. What are you 
  doing in this neck of the woods?"

  "I was looking for a living, but to do that I need to find out 
  why there aren't any left."

  "If you humans lived like us animals then you wouldn't have this 
  problem. None of us ever need to look for a living."

  "Yes, but lots of you animals die in gruesomely horrible ways -- 
  disease, starvation, cold, being someone else's dinner..."

  "That is a bit of a downer, I must admit. Where do you plan to 
  go?"

  "I thought the King might know why there are no livings left."

  "Perhaps, but have you tried the famous Three Economists yet?"

  "No. Where are they?"

  "They live in the ever-so-middlest of the forest at the top of 
  an Ivory Tower. They know everything, they say, and Kings and 
  Chancellors come from all over the world to consult them."

  So Joe and Blackberry, who said she needed a holiday, set off by 
  hill and scented valley, down wide cart tracks, muddy paths and 
  hidden greenways to the Ivory Tower. The journey went on and on, 
  rather like most wanderings in fairy tales, and I won't bore you 
  with it.


  3. In which Joe meets the Famous Three Economists.
----------------------------------------------------

  At last they came to the tower and climbed the Ivory steps to 
  the Ivory top where the venerable Three Economists sat reading 
  authoritative books on the nature of economic strategies in the 
  incredibly real real world in today's real world.

  "Good day, venerable economists," said Joe, "I have a question 
  for you."

  "Let's discuss the fee first," said the first economist, who was 
  smoking a pipe.

  "Surely we can leave such vulgarities until later," said the 
  second economist, who was bald but had a mustache.

  "I really don't think that's the issue," said the third, who 
  wore gold-rimmed spectacles.

  "Let the boy speak," said the first economist.

  "I suppose we ought to settle the fee first, actually," said the 
  second economist.

  The third economist tutted and rolled his eyes. "The boy 
  manifestly has no money."

  "Then he ought to go and earn some like the rest of us," said 
  the first economist.

  Joe tried to interject but only got to say "That's..." before 
  the second economist interrupted.

  "Perhaps that's why he's here. We've got no appointments until 
  three this afternoon -- why not entertain him for a while?"

  "I agree wholeheartedly," said the third economist. "Except that 
  I have an appointment at two."

  The economists sat in silence watching Joe expectantly.

  Blackberry nudged Joe. "Go on, then," she whispered.

  "Ah," started Joe. "I would like to know why ever and ever there 
  are no livings left."

  "Easy-peasy," said the first economist.

  "As plain as the nose on your face," said the second economist.

  "Its far too complex to explain to a layman," said the third.

  "The paucity of economic opportunity is a symptom of the decline 
  of a fat, exhausted and overpriced economy in which we have 
  efficiencied ourselves out of a job. Consider: A bank that used 
  to employ twenty cashiers now only needs two employees and a 
  cash machine. This makes things cheaper for the consumer until 
  such a point that the consumer also loses his job through 
  mechanization. Hence a very streamlined supply side of the 
  economy and eventually no demand, because everybody has been 
  streamlined out of the supply side, which is the side offering 
  all the jobs. My suggestion is that you become a machine, son."

  "Nonsense," said the second economist. "We had boom-and-bust 
  cycles before mechanization. It's part of the natural -- 
  possibly even invigorating -- cycles of life and death, summer 
  and winter, day and night. It happens and will continue to 
  happen. Such factors as stock market crashes, unemployment, 
  deflation of both economy and currency et cetera are but 
  symptoms of this decline, not the cause. The cause is innate in 
  the system -- the cause _is_ the system."

  "Oh come on now," said the third economist. "The reason is that 
  we, meaning us the country and us the business community, have 
  built economic successes on ever-expanding credit. When the 
  debts are called in, panic ensues because nobody can pay without 
  calling in their debts. Everybody goes into a frenzy demanding 
  debts and deferring payment of their own until they go bankrupt; 
  confidence in the system is lost and investment slows, if not 
  ceases. No investment, no business, no jobs. Added to this 
  effect is the effect of allying our economy with Europe, whose 
  economies run on different lines -- when Germany decides to put 
  up interest rates to encourage foreign investment to pay for 
  their internal affairs, so do we, because we have to, to keep 
  our currency at the tagged rate, benefiting creditors and 
  damaging debtors until the debtors default and everybody goes 
  bust."

  "Does that answer your question, son?" said the first economist.

  "Which of you is right?" asked Joe.

  "We all are," said the second economist.

  "But you all gave different reasons. You can't all be right."

  "Economics is a very complex science, a multi-layered flow of 
  variable interlocking currents which traverse the whole world," 
  said the third economist expansively.

  "Well, whose fault is all this?" asked Joe.

  "Progress and capitalism," said the first economist.

  "Nobody's. It's chaos theory in action," said the second 
  economist.

  "It's the government," said the third economist.

  "So how are we to get out of this hole?" asked Joe.

  "Move to the far east," said the first economist.

  "God only knows. Wait for a change in the weather, I suppose," 
  said the second economist.

  "Oh, the usual, encourage the growth of business through lower 
  taxes, firm currency control, a suitable interest rate and 
  such," said the third economist.

  "So it's going to get better, then," said Joe.

  "I doubt it," said the first economist. "Our economies are 
  overloaded galleons just waiting to capsize."

  "Oh, it will, given time, but no one will know why or when," 
  said the second economist.

  "When the government pays back the legislative debt, undoing all 
  the damage of the last few years and providing a background 
  amenable to business," said the third economist.

  "It's not surprising that the King doesn't have a clue how to 
  run the economy if he has you lot for advisors," said Joe.

  "Harumph," said the first economist. "I am emeritus professor of 
  fiscal psychology at the University of Bad Znuckensitzen, I'll 
  have you know. Have you never heard of Europe's Ersatz TV 
  economist? You know, I'm on Drang nach Osten. It's particularly 
  popular with the Germans."

  "I hold the Piaf memorial chair of Apology Negation at the 
  University of Sansculotte, and they don't call me Mr. Money, Our 
  Economist Who's Friendly and Funny for nothing," said the second 
  economist.

  "And I am senior advisor to Herr Doktor Doktor Doktor 
  Gemeinschaft of Bank Swabia, Switzerland," said the third 
  economist. "I have a regular program on Radio Ryokaplatz beamed 
  across Scandinavia and the Baltic. So don't tell me my advice is 
  no good."

  "Thank you," said Joe, who was quite polite even when dealing 
  with self-important second-raters.

  As they descended the ivory steps Blackberry made a face.

  "They weren't very useful, were they?" she said.

  "Oh, I don't know. At least we know that _nobody_ has a clue 
  what's going on. Whom do you suggest now?"

  "Let's forget about _why_ this has happened. Why not find the 
  famous Three Personnel Consultants and see what they have got to 
  say about finding a career?"

  "Where do they live?" asked Joe.

  "They live behind a huge wooden door with gold leaf lettering 
  deep in the forest which can only be found by following a narrow 
  winding six-lane motorway which runs in a huge circle and is 
  permanently clogged with slowly-shunting traffic, depressed 
  husbands, hysterical wives and vomiting children."

  "Sounds fun," said Joe, unconvinced.


  4. In which Joe meets the Famous Three Personnel Consultants.
---------------------------------------------------------------

  Joe knocked at the door Blackberry had led him to. On it was 
  written The Famous Three Personnel Consultants -- Please Knock 
  and Enter, so Joe did. The Famous Three Personnel Consultants 
  sat behind a leather-topped desk and all wore glasses and were 
  bald, including the woman, though she wore a wig.

  "Good morning," said the leftmost Consultant. "Did you have a 
  good journey?"

  "Well..." Joe started.

  "Good, good," said the middlemost Consultant. "Did you have a 
  good journey?"

  "Not bad..." Joe started.

  "Can I take your coat?" said the rightmost and most female 
  consultant, the one who wore a wig.

  "But I'm not wearing..." Joe started.

  "Good, good," said the leftmost Consultant. He flipped over a 
  notepad sheet and chewed the end of his pencil. "What experience 
  can you bring to this post?"

  Joe looked surprised. All three personnel consultants looked at 
  him in the friendly-yet-expectant manner they had been taught to 
  use, and which had driven their respective spouses to the verge 
  of a violent divorce.

  "I, er, er," Joe thought hard. "I know how to cut down apple 
  trees."

  There was a long and meaningful pause which was supposed to 
  elicit further details from the interrogee. Usually this 
  resulted in a stream of meaningless babble and the Consultants 
  knew with satisfaction that they had managed to humiliate the 
  quivering heap of pathetic flesh that lay damp and snickering in 
  front of them.

  "Ye-es," said the rightmost and most female Consultant 
  lengthily, marking something off slowly and deliberately on her 
  checksheet. "In what way do you suppose the skills of arboreal 
  pruning can be _transferred_ to the post of filing clerk and 
  general dogsbody?" She stressed _transferred_ because this was 
  an In word and she really desperately wanted to be a fashionable 
  Personnel Consultant.

  "None really," said Joe in a fatal flash of veracity. "Actually, 
  I came here to..."

  "I see from your CV that you only scored 90 percent in your 
  end-of-term spelling test ten years ago. Why was that?" said the 
  leftmost Consultant.

  Joe drew his brows together. "Um..."

  "Don't you think you may be a little overqualified for this 
  post?" said the middlemost Consultant.

  "Too young?" said the leftmost Consultant.

  "Too old?" said the middlemost Consultant.

  "Too middling?" said the rightmost and most female Consultant.

  There was another pregnant-yet-sympathetic pause. Joe was lost.

  "No, I don't think so," he said.

  They flipped their notepads and marked something down.

  "I see you have done a lot of travelling," said the leftmost 
  Consultant.

  "A bit, here and there," said Joe.

  "Aha! Do you really think you are ready to settle down now?" 
  said the rightmost and most female Consultant with a 
  doubtful-but-questioning set of the nose.

  "That's good; it shows _initiative_," said the middlemost 
  Consultant, using his most favorite word.

  "Where do you see yourself in ten years' time?" asked the 
  rightmost and most female consultant.

  "I don't," said Joe firmly. There ensued another nailbitingly 
  firm-but-approachable pause.

  "I see," said the middlemost Consultant. "We have five other 
  candidates to see today. Why should we choose you?"

  "Five thousand actually," said the leftmost Consultant.

  "Five million actually," said the rightmost and most female 
  Consultant.

  "All of whom have years and years of exactly the experience we 
  want, at least two degrees, are under nineteen years old, 
  willing to work for peanuts and all the hours that God gives. 
  They have no family, mortgage or social life and are driven only 
  by the terror of poverty. What can you offer?"

  "I've got most of those, except the experience and the two 
  degrees," said Joe.

  "We don't really need the two degrees, actually," admitted the 
  middlemost Consultant, "but it appears a slightly less random 
  method of choosing than pinning on a donkey's tail."

  "What we really need is someone who has spent twenty years 
  filing in gray steel cabinets and making five cups of coffee, 
  two white only, two with sugar only and one with both every half 
  an hour at 17 minutes past and 13 minutes to the hour except 
  during lunch and who is under nineteen, and preferably pliant," 
  said the leftmost Consultant.

  "But that's not possible," said Joe.

  "Ah, but you see, there are five million people out there to 
  choose from. There's bound to be someone." said the rightmost 
  and most female Consultant.

  "Then they're lying," said Joe.

  "I think _we_ can tell a liar when we see one, young man," said 
  the leftmost Consultant in some dudgeon.

  "I think you misunderstand our purpose. You think we're here to 
  _employ_ people don't you?" said the middlemost Consultant.

  "Well, aren't you?" said Joe. The Consultants laughed in the 
  friendly-yet-pedagogical manner they had refined through their 
  years of overvalued employment.

  "Oh, no," said the rightmost and most female Consultant. "We are 
  concerned with _not_ employing people and when they are 
  employed, with _not_ sacking them. Out of the many options we 
  have to pick the best. For instance, we have to glance through 
  several hundred CVs for each post; the ones with spelling 
  mistakes are immediately discarded. We don't have enough time to 
  check any deeper."

  "If you don't have time, how come you can check for spelling 
  mistakes?" said Joe.

  "We have time enough for that," snapped the middlemost 
  Consultant.

  "So you are being entirely negative in your search then?" said 
  Joe.

  "Oh, no, no" they chorused. "No, oh no." _Negative_ was a deeply 
  unfashionable word in personnel circles, like _luck_ and 
  _mistake_.

  "We choose on the basis of instinct," said the leftmost 
  Consultant. "You can't buck human nature. Our decision is made 
  within the first three minutes of meeting the applicant."

  "What, depending on whether they're pretty or not?" said Joe.

  "I wouldn't put it _exactly_ like that," said the rightmost and 
  most female Consultant. The other Consultants waited politely 
  for her to say how _exactly_ she would put it, but she didn't.

  "So what's the point in the pseudo-science of personnel if it 
  comes down to basic instincts anyway?"

  The Consultants shuffled uncomfortably. "We have to choose 
  _some_ way. I think we have more refined instincts than most and 
  understand people better," said the middlemost Consultant.

  "I beg to differ there," said Joe. "It's incontrovertible that 
  some incompetents do get hired and some talented, hard-working 
  people don't."

  "But it's inevitable that some mistakes occur. We don't claim to 
  be superhuman," said the leftmost Consultant.

  "By that logic," said Joe, "air traffic controllers should be 
  forgiven causing a few aircraft to collide. The difference is 
  that air traffic control is an applied science with objective 
  standards, and personnel is a load of baloney. To make matters 
  worse, it's not merely a matter of a _few_ incompetents in jobs 
  and a few of the unfortunate talented out of work, it's 
  thousands, if not millions."

  Joe was now warming to his subject. "And those incompetents make 
  the employment situation worse precisely because they're 
  incompetent at running an efficient business. It often seems 
  that the only qualification required to get a high-powered job 
  is that you should be a self-seeking grasping liar with 
  connections in the right places who is willing to acquiesce to 
  any of the notions of your direct boss, however daft or 
  fraudulent."

  The Consultants licked their lips nervously. "I thought _we_ 
  were conducting the interview. You're not keeping to the 
  commonly accepted standards of interview techniques," said the 
  rightmost and most female consultant.

  "Are you saying, then, that personnel selection procedures are 
  no better than random?" asked the leftmost Consultant.

  "Worse," said Joe. "Because the specifications on which someone 
  is hired is uniformly arbitrary and _not_ random. For instance 
  you won't hire young women because they might get pregnant."

  "Well, it's _possible__," said the rightmost and most female 
  Consultant a bit wistfully.

  "You won't hire people over 50, presumably because only extreme 
  youth is fashionable and, by definition, you will only hire 
  people who can be totally at ease when under scrutiny -- which 
  indicates that the candidate is good at either job interviews or 
  lying, and those who do not qualify are permanently 
  unemployable."

  "We have to use _some_ method," said the middlemost Consultant.

  "But does it have to be uniformly the same one?"

  "We must keep up to date in the incredibly competitive world of 
  today," said the leftmost Consultant. "In any case, if our 
  procedures didn't work, nobody would employ us. Businesses 
  aren't stupid, you know."

  "But who checks? How can anyone check? You can't admit to a 
  mistake because you want to keep your job too and no businessman 
  is going to admit that all his staff were hired incompetently. 
  Businesses can thrive without personnel departments, you know."

  "But only small ones," said the middlemost Consultant.

  "Is there any evidence at all that your recruitment methods are 
  any better than random methods?"

  There was another uncomfortable pause during which all three 
  coughed nervously.

  "Thank you for taking the time to come," said the middlemost 
  Consultant.

  "I'm afraid the post has already been filled," said the 
  rightmost and most female consultant.

  "I'm afraid we will have to postpone recruitment until next 
  year. Do try again," said the leftmost Consultant.

  The Consultants started marking things down on their checksheets 
  and flipping notes backward and forward.

  "That's it," said Blackberry. "Pretty useless, eh?"

  Joe got up from the extremely uncomfortable squeaky swivel chair 
  he had been sitting on.

  "That's not so surprising, is it?" said Joe. "After all, it was 
  people like this who recruited other people like this to run big 
  companies."

  As he left the office, a secretary passed him a note. "From the 
  Personnel Consultants," she said, chewing her chewing gum 
  noisily.

  It read:

    "To find a job you must:
     Look for a job tailored to your experience.
     Sell yourself.
     (Your expectations are too high.
     You have no self-confidence.)"

  "But I haven't got any experience to tailor anything to!" said 
  Joe. "And why should I sell myself? Isn't that just smooth 
  lying? I've never claimed to be a salesman and never wanted a 
  sales job. My expectation is just to get a job; is that too 
  high? If I have no self-confidence, isn't that because I can't 
  even fulfill the basic expectation of getting a job?"

  "Don't have conniptions," said Blackberry. "That's what they 
  want. They want you to feel it's all your fault because then 
  they won't have to do anything about it. Let's try the three 
  politicians."

  "Politicians?" said Joe. "Oh dear."


  5. In which Joe meets the Famous Three Politicians.
-----------------------------------------------------

  The Famous Three Politicians lived in a beautiful neo-gothic 
  palace on the banks of a big river. Joe was directed down dark, 
  wallpapered corridors, past wooden trifolium ornamentation and 
  over-luxurious woolen carpets toward a broad double door behind 
  which could be heard the sound of a convention of axe-murderers.

  "Tres William Morris," said Blackberry admiringly from Joe's 
  pocket as she eyed up the dark green organic design on the 
  walls.

  "Ordah ordah!" shouted someone. The noise continued. "Oh, fer 
  chrissake shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Please!"

  Joe opened the door.

  "Did so!" shouted a man in a suit.

  "Did not!" shouted another.

  "Didididididididididididid!" shouted the first.

  "Didndidndidndidndidn't!" shouted the other.

  "I'll agree with anyone who'll agree with me," said a third.

  "Oh, shut up," said the other two.

  "I will not have such language..." started a woman with a blue 
  rinse from the back of the playpen.

  "Go stick it in your ear," said the first.

  "Whaddayou want?" asked the second, facing Joe.

  "A job, actually," said Joe.

  "Well stop whining and go and look for one!" said the first, 
  cursing as he dropped his briefcase and thousands of stock 
  certificates slid out.

  "See! See!" said the second. "You see what happens when you vote 
  _his_ lot in!"

  "I didn't," said Joe. "I was too young to vote the last time. I 
  wanted to know why I can't get a job."

  "You bloody well get on your bike and look for one," said the 
  first politician."

  "I don't have a bike," said Joe.

  "Then buy one."

  "I don't have any money, and in any case employers don't just 
  employ people who turn up on their doorsteps anymore," said Joe.

  "Oh piss off, you whining git," said the first politician. "Get 
  a job and get out of my face."

  "I can't," said Joe.

  "There's no such thing as can't. You just don't want to. You'd 
  rather tramp to and fro across the country in an endless and 
  futile search for a fictional excuse for not getting a job. I 
  bet my _honorable_ colleague opposite would oblige you with one 
  of those," he sneered at the second politician. "You people make 
  me sick. Don't you see?" He waved his hands around in an 
  encompassing gesture. "We have created a meritocratic paradise. 
  If you can't make it here, you can't make it anywhere."

  "Piffle!" said the second politician. "Codswallop! As there is 
  profit in employment, there has to be profit in unemployment. If 
  you voted for me, the whole world would join hands and sing in 
  peaceful harmony..."

  "Tripe!" said the first politician. "Nobody believes or trusts 
  you. The economy would collapse within days of you assuming 
  power!"

  "Only because you and your friends would sabotage it!"

  "Doesn't matter _why_, it just would. Who'd trust you with a 
  penny? You get in and I'm on a plane to Bermuda along with all 
  my money. And as for you, young man," he looked at Joe, "there 
  is no such thing as unemployment. There is merely an 
  unwillingness to match one's self to the requirements of the 
  marketplace. What do you want me to do? Cry? Piss off. I'm not 
  interested."

  "If we had been in power," said the second, "you wouldn't be in 
  this state. Blame yourself."

  "But..." said Joe.

  You're not worth the breath it takes to ignore you," said the 
  first politician. "Let's face it, you're an irrelevant whining 
  scrounger with no money, no job, no vote, no prospects, no 
  connections and no point. Goodbye. And as for you, you corrupt 
  incompetent..."

  "Who exactly are you calling a corrupt incompetent, you 
  self-satisfied upper class oaf?"

  "How _dare_ you..."

  Joe turned away from the playpen and made his own way out.

  "They say that the incidence of suicide is on the increase," Joe 
  said to Blackberry.

  Blackberry shrugged. "You should have been born a squirrel," she 
  said.


  6. In which the gentle reader decides what happens to Joe.
------------------------------------------------------------

  So what did happen to Joe? Well, there are a number of 
  possibilities. Armed with your knowledge and experience choose 
  from the following:


**a)** As Joe plodded dejectedly toward the center of town, a 
  long black car pulled up. A businessman wound down the window 
  from the back seat.

  "Exactly what I've been looking for!" he said.

  "Pardon?" said Joe.

  "Do you want a job?" said the businessman.

  "Well, er, yes," said Joe.

  The businessman handed Joe his card. Montague Twistleton-Smythe, 
  Chartered Odd-Job man to the Astonishingly Rich. "Be at that 
  address tomorrow morning at nine. Twenty thousand a year. 
  Company Car. Stock Options. All we need is your brains," he 
  said.

  "Wow," said Joe. "It's like a fairy tale."

  "Either that, or you've finally lost it," said Blackberry. 
  "Otherwise I wouldn't still be here."


**b)** Joe plodded dejectedly back into town to find the dole 
  office.

  "Help," he said to the official there.

  The official sighed. "Are you now or have you ever been 
  unemployed?" he said.

  "Yup," said Joe, "and I'm broke."

  "Well, find someplace to stay, and we'll pay you."

  So Joe found the friends that everyone is supposed to have in 
  the big city and persuaded them to let him sleep on the floor so 
  he could get the dole. Then the landlady found out and he was 
  kicked out, along with the rest of his friends, one of whom had 
  a job and so could rent another place. Gosh, that was lucky.

  Being an unemployed young male, no landlord would offer him a 
  room, so in the end Joe had to give up and go home, where he 
  lived for years and years until he had no spirit left and 
  certainly had nothing to sell to the marketplace.


**c)** Joe plodded dejectedly back into town to find the dole 
  office.

  "Help," he said to the official there.

  The official sighed. "Are you now or have you ever been 
  unemployed?" he said.

  "Yup," said Joe, "and I'm broke."

  "Well, find a place to stay and we'll pay you."

  "I see a fatal flaw in that plan," said Joe.

  "Not my problem," said the official.

  So Joe slept underneath a bridge until the police hosed his box 
  into the river. He lived off handouts and whisky, indulging in 
  the odd bit of theft and buggery until his brain had been 
  pickled and he smelled so bad and looked so ugly that nobody 
  gave a tinker's damn about what happened to him. Even the 
  well-meaning liberals didn't bother wringing their hands in 
  sympathy.

  Mind you, all that whisky and dodgy crack had meant he could now 
  converse with Blackberry the talking Squirrel. In fact, he saw 
  her everywhere.

  So next time you come across a man looking haggard and unshaven 
  holding a whisky bottle in one hand tottering underneath a 
  bridge and slurring "Ay! 'Vyer seen Blackbree, 'vyer, ay?" then 
  do say hello from me, won't you?



  Adam Harrington <adam.harrington@btinternet.com>
--------------------------------------------------
  Despite the impression you might get from his story, Adam 
  Harrington is happily employed as a computer contractor in 
  England. He has been a biologist, journalist, unemployed bum, 
  bookie's clerk and unemployed bum again -- in that order -- and 
  doesn't plan on retiring until his cold dead fingers are pried 
  from the office doorknob.



  The Year Before Sleep   by Rupert Goodwins
============================================
....................................................................
  Losing yourself in your work is fine, so long as you remember to 
  come back.
....................................................................

  Cecil spun his web lazily, hooking it between branches and 
  thorns, leaves and flakes of bark. It was early in the morning, 
  and he was still too cold to shake off the waking sluggishness 
  in his mind and limbs. He watched sun-slivered color glint 
  through dewdrops, watched green translucence creep down 
  shadow-dipped grass stems next to the bramble bush. 

  Eventually, the sun touched his head, then his back. His body 
  warmed, the plump abdomen contracting and expanding as energy 
  pumped through it. Gradually, the world around him grew and the 
  thirty-two aches in his thirty-two joints melted away. He was 
  alert now.

  The web needed tidying. He tidied it, scuttling across it to a 
  ragged corner, a sulking gap near the top, a clumsy anchor on a 
  bramble bud.

  That should do. Now, wait.

  The dewdrops had gone by midday. Cecil sheltered under a leaf: 
  it was a clear day and there was rather too much sun. One leg 
  lightly touched a strand of the web; through it he could hear 
  his prey distantly moving through the air. Always too distant, 
  he thought. He wasn't hungry exactly, but he would be in a 
  couple of days and he didn't want to have to move. Still time to 
  wait.

  The afternoon passed. One small blue fast-flying blur snapped 
  into the web, but snapped away again almost before Cecil was out 
  from under the leaf. He scrambled out to inspect the damage; 
  there was a ragged hole that couldn't be fixed neatly. He did 
  the best he could, and slunk back again.

  Then, just as the sun touched the top of the scrubby trees at 
  the far end of the clearing, he got a hit. He heard it coming: a 
  deep, slow buzz that made him remember with pleasure a 
  particularly succulent catch from weeks ago. With delight, he 
  noted that the buzz was getting steadily louder. It must be 
  heading straight for him, he thought, and then it was in the 
  net. The twig he was on bent slightly with the impact; he was 
  out in no time, cautiously circling the victim. This one wasn't 
  going to get away.

  It was trying, though. The web bounced and strained, vibrating 
  with the prey's frantic bursts of motion. Cecil watched it 
  warily: it didn't seem to be the sort with a sting, and he 
  couldn't see anything too much like dangerous jaws. He checked 
  the tension on the web: it was good. He could wait until it 
  tired itself out a little more.

  That took quite a long time, and the air was cooling before he 
  tried a quick rush over the body. It was still buzzing, but 
  quietly now, intermittently. One track of web over it, then 
  another, then another. Then in for the kill: he bit, feeling his 
  fangs make contact with the body, then through and into it. A 
  pump of venom. A final twitch. He quickly mummified it with a 
  single layer of web, then cut it clear of the holding strands 
  before tumbling it over and over with his hind legs, weaving a 
  thick, glistening cover. It was bigger than he was even before 
  he finished.

  Satisfied with his work, he dragged it back to his haunt under 
  the leaf, sticking it carefully to the junction with the twig. 
  Night was no time to do anything. He'd wait until morning, then 
  consume his meal and think -- yes, definitely -- about moving to 
  a new site.

  When daylight touched the world about him, everything seemed as 
  it should be. Things to do formed in his night-slowed mind. 
  Repair the web, or move. Eat. Yes, eat. He shuddered with slow 
  waking, and made to move toward the waiting package.

  He didn't move. He tried again; his complaining legs made the 
  right aches, his body bumped away from the twig, but slumped 
  back down again. His legs strained harder. Something was holding 
  them fast. There came a colder thought, paralysing him just by 
  the shapes it made in his head -- wasps! He knew of them; the 
  memory of them had always been there. Small things, predatory, 
  always hungry, who flew at night and laid their eggs in living 
  flesh, leaving it aware and immobile. Was that it?

  "No, we're not wasps."

  Cecil had enjoyed a long and successful life. He had survived 
  many of the dangers that could wipe out the toothsome; had 
  hidden and run, had outwitted most of the rapaciously hungry 
  animals that would otherwise have added him to their list of 
  meals consumed. He had seen three seasons, been flooded, baked, 
  blown away by the wind and nearly frozen. Never, in all this, 
  had he ever had a thought that was not his own. The shock of it 
  held him tight as any bright-eyed mouse.

  "Come on, Cecil. You're no spider. We're no fly. Look up, look 
  at yesterday's catch."

  He still couldn't separate out these alien voices from his own; 
  but if a thought said "look up," you should look up. He looked 
  at the bundle of sticky thread on the twig. It was as he 
  remembered it.

  Except.

  Except there was a neat hole halfway up, perfectly round. There 
  was something dark sticking out of it, and a bright red thread 
  ran from the hole to the twig. It ended up in a neat loop, 
  encircling the twig and two of his legs, holding them fast 
  together. Then it ran under his body. He couldn't see where it 
  ended.

  "That's it. Talk to us, Cecil."

  The shock subsided. He thought back at the voices. "What are 
  you? How are you in me? You are wasps. You will kill me."

  "Not wasps. Friends. Cecil, we've been looking for you. We were 
  worried."

  "Friends. Worried. No, no, no. Wasps." Cecil hadn't ever thought 
  much about what it would be like to be a living host to wasps. 
  Not something to dwell on. But now he thought about it; it must 
  be like this. Once the eggs were in your body, their thoughts 
  must be in your mind. Made sense. Horrid sense. He wished he'd 
  eaten the fly last night now. A last meal to keep him going a 
  bit longer.

  "Forget the wasps, Cecil!" The voice was louder. Sounded quite 
  upset.

  "...wasps..." he mumbled, trying to see if he could feel where 
  the eggs were. Everything felt normal. The sun would be on him 
  soon. Perhaps he'd have the strength to get to the fly then.

  "It's not a fly! Oh, for heaven's sake..." There was an 
  indistinct conversation. He caught the odd phrase: "How much 
  more damage can we do? He thinks he's an orb spider, for..." 
  "Well, why not?" Then it went quiet. Cecil waited, for sunlight 
  or for death.

  "Cecil. Cecil Sharpley."

  The last word hit him as the sun touched his head. A burst of 
  light, inside and out.

  "Frederic." he said. "Cecil Frederic Sharpley. That's me."

  "Well done! Cecil, this is Greerly. We're here to get you..." 
  But his mind was filled with babble; he was quite unable to tell 
  what was his, what was the voice. The noises merged, collided, 
  fell apart. He felt his body vibrate, his legs pumping him up 
  and down, escape the bird that way, escape the bird that way, 
  escape...

  Inside his mind, a burning. A man came awake. A thirty-seven 
  year old man, warm, with a wife, with a fascination for 
  arachnids. A man who made models, a man who wanted to make, who 
  made, the ultimate field trip. A man who got lost, who forgot 
  the way out of the field. A man who went to sleep, and woke up 
  one day not as a man, who slept again.

  Now he was awake. Just for a second. Just long enough to feel 
  the spider body around him and, in the distance, a body that had 
  been home. He felt the thorax with the legs sprouting from it 
  bursting through his chest, the distended abdomen where his 
  stomach was, the mess of fangs and eyes and hair merging with 
  his warm, smooth, man's face. An excruciating ugliness that the 
  sunlight could never warm.

  Later that afternoon, an ichneumon wasp found the spider. It 
  settled on the leaf above it, and carefully made its way down, 
  antennae scanning. But the body was cold and had already started 
  to decay. Unsuited for the purpose.

  There would be others.

  The wasp flew away.



  Rupert Goodwins <rupertgo@aol.com>
------------------------------------

  Large, shambling, ground-dwelling primate. Reclusive, but 
  habitat thought to be restricted to temperate zones in North 
  London. Feeding and mating habits: Obscure, and deservedly so. 
  Evidence for existence may be found in PC Magazine UK, and in a 
  weekend diary on <http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/>



  FYI
=====
...................................................................

  InterText's next issue will be released in April 1998.

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